Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So every year, usually in fall, there are about a million threads on here about brumation. And it invariably comes up that some people find that snakes will brumate "on there own" even if they have the temps to digest. Others argue that no snake would ever refuse a meal unless there was something wrong. I would like to approach this subject again and hopefully keep it productive and on topic.

I keep cal kings and a variety of other colubrids. Over the years I have experimented with a variety of different conditions, from long forced brumations, to no brumation at all, to lowering the cool end to the 50s while still providing a basking spot during the day, etc, etc, etc. Throughout all of this I have always had a few snakes that start refusing food in the fall. They have all been male cal kings. They do not loose much weight if I let them cool, but they will loose a little if I try to keep them warm.

Things that have never changed...
I have always lived in northern latitudes
I have always had a natural photoperiod from large windows in the snake room.
Males and females have always been housed in the same room in separate cages except for spring.

This year I noticed something very interesting from another completely unrelated experiment I am trying. I set up several groups of hatchlings to raise together. I have housed snakes together year round, but I have never done it by raising them together from a young age and I was curious to see the dynamic that developed. I set up several groups of 1.2 siblings. In two of these groups (one cal kings, one corns snakes) I noticed something that fascinated me.

Each group of three hatchlings had numerous (8-10) tight dark hides. For the first few months of life they all usually hung out under the same hide by choice (even thought other hides had the same conditions. I would throw in 6-8 pinks every few days in the evening and remove whatever was left in the morning. Continued...

In the fall, one snake in each of these groups began refusing food. The other two snakes would eat and then move to the warm side, while these other two individuals chose to not eat and stay on the cool side. These non feeders each ate once or twice all winter. They maintained normal body condition, but fell significantly behind their siblings in growth. Beginning in march, both snakes began eating again and are now growing fast. We will see if they catch up to their sibs and see what they do this coming winter.

I thought that this was very interesting that siblings housed under identical husbandry would show such different responses. I should mention that one of my males that consistently goes off feed for the winter is the father to the group of kings.

So, I would like to know a little more about people who have experienced spontaneous brumations, vs people that have not experienced it.

I am curious about the following information..

Where do you live?
Do you have natural light cycles? timed lights? Etc?
What species are you referring to?
What is your temp gradient in the summer and winter?
Anything else you might think is relevant?
Do you know the original locality of the snakes?

Cheers

interesting... whats the sex of the ones that stop eating? or rather are they the same sex that stopped eating in both groups?
my guess is they will catch up in growth this year regardless of sex but i am curious.
overall id say my females grow faster than my males but ive never really "tested" it.
,,,,,,,,,thomas davis
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Morphs... just like baseball cards BUT ALIVE, how cool is that???

my website www.barmollysplace.com

Each group has one male and two females and all three are clutch mates. Interestingly it was one of the females in each group that stopped eating. The corn snake that stopped eating is about half the size of her sister, who is about to lay her first clutch of eggs at 10 months old, making her the youngest snake to ever lay in my collection. The kingsnakes stayed closer in size, I haven't weighed them since mid winter, but I bet the smaller female is 25% smaller.

I don't have any real data to add. I just wanted to say I had a Corn lay eggs at around 10 months also one time. They were all duds, but one. I have also bin noticing that smaller snakes that I don't feed heavily, will produce smaller eggs perportionate with their bodies. Yet snakes that I power feed, tend to have giant eggs. I just had a Corn snake that I wasn't overly excited about so I didn't feed her as much as some others, and she layed 12 small eggs? Yet another Corn which I am very interested in, I fed heavily, and she looks like she will have some very large eggs. I know it's a bit off topic, just an observation I am curious about also.
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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
Jorge Sierra

My Site > www.Sierrasnakes.com

Do you have natural light cycles? timed lights? Etc?
Natural light
What species are you referring to?
Pyromelana and Pituophis (Pacific gophers and bull snakes)
What is your temp gradient in the summer and winter?
Winter average of 65 F to 75 F high and 40 F to 50 F low.
Summer 70 to 100 F high and 55 F to 65 F low.
These are indoor temps. Outdoors is much more extreme especially this last winter. The snakes all have a hot spot of 75 to 85 F except during the winter, when I let them brumate in the mid 40's to 50's F. In the height of summer I turn all the heaters off. The heaters are mostly a spring and fall thing.
Anything else you might think is relevant?
They seem hardwired to brumate. In the late fall they generally stop eating. Sometimes the babies will eat through out the winter. Anybody that still wants to eat, they keep the heater on.
Do you know the original locality of the snakes?
Some of the pyros are Chiricahua local. Bulls are Stillwater/Kingsville. Gophers are Central California.
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

I forgot to mention, my bulls and gopher snakes are in pairs male/female, except for a few that have major size difference so are singly. The pyros are in one trio and one pair, and everybody else singly. I have a bunch of babies from '10 that I will put in trios and pairs this fall. I may have hatchlings this fall; have not decided what I will do with their housing. I am intrigued with the idea of putting them all together for the winter. The main drawback on that is if they all look alike keeping track of feeding, etc would be hard.
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

Yeah, tracking everyone was hard and I have just had to take a deep breath and let go of my compulsion to monitor/control everything.

What I did was make a card for each individual and I found a specific marking on the head of each one to tell them apart. I rarely used these cards. I then made another card for the group to record the dates of feedings and when I found sheds. I would feed by just tossing in about twice as many food items as there were snakes. I tended to feed smaller sized food items, so that they could get them down quickly minimizing the chances of another snake coming up and trying to take it from them. I would spray the cage after I dropped food. They quickly learned to come out looking for food when I sprayed. This prevented one of them from waking up and eating everything in sight while the others slept. Every once in a while I would find them all the day after feeding and make sure everyone had a lump showing that they got at least one food item. I also weighed them regularly and made sure that no one was falling behind (except for the ones that brumated obviously)

The very first few feedings I supervised carefully and several times watched as snakes grabbed the same food item. Each time hey fought it out on their own and within a few weeks they had learned to leave each other alone and go find an easier meal. The learning that I have witnessed with these groups has been really impressive. Now I just toss in handfuls of fuzzies every 3ish days and walk away.

Another thing I learned... some snakes will eat multiple prey items every single time, and others, even if given ample opportunity will always choose to just eat one. The ones that would eat only one, would often eat again the next day, whereas those that gorged themselves would go sleep it off and not eat for several days.

What kind of kings are they? How big are the groups and are there multiple males and females together? How young were they when you put them in a group?
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

These were cal kings and corn snakes. I set up two groups of each. Each group has one male and two females. (12 snakes total, 6 cals and 6 corns). I kept them together as hatchlings until they shed as I usually do. I then separated all of them to make sure that they were feeding well. After five or six meals I put them back together at about a month old. I initially set them up in 20 gal long tanks so that I had plenty of room for lots of hides, and I could observe them carefully. Nor they are in my normal adult rack system.

I thought it was interesting which ones chose to be together. Each tank had at least 8 or nine hides with lots of repetition of parameters (IE 3 dry hides all on the cool side, 2 humid hides, 3 hides on the warm side, plus a deep substrate so they could hide wherever they want.) So that each snake could choose to be by themselves. I figured if I saw this behavior I would take it as a sign that they preferred to be alone and I would end my group housing trial. Well, to this day the corn snakes are almost always crammed under the same hide. As the kings have aged they have somewhat less of a tendency to do this, but I still find two or sometimes all three, sleeping together on a regular basis.

My pairs and trios also like to be together even though they have assorted hides and deep substrate. The one exception to this was my trio of two 09 female pyros and one small 08 male pyro; one of the females was considerably smaller than her sister and the male, and she hung out by herself in one of the moss hides while the other two were nearly always together. I finally put her by herself as she just seemed too small to be with the other two. She seemed comfortable with them in the same cage. She will probably be paired up with some of my larger '10 pyros this fall when I sort them into trios and pairs.
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

Ack! Typo! I meant she seemed UNcomfortable with them in the same cage.
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

Adult Cal kings I have kept in groups would do some of that - a few, notably female, would use warmth more often in Winter than others, typically male. Ive raised hatchlings together too. Few would refuse food or slow down in Winter, most would eat through. I had one female (desert locale) hatchling that refused food from the day it hatched until the next Spring, which is pretty rare for a Cal king. She grew up to be quite a beast of a Cal king, very strong.

>>Where do you live? So Cal
>>Do you have natural light cycles? timed lights? Etc? Natural

>>What species are you referring to? Cal kings all the way

>>What is your temp gradient in the summer and winter? Summer 75-90, Winter hangs around 45-65, some warmer days, but the ground is cold.

>>Anything else you might think is relevant?

>>Do you know the original locality of the snakes?
Mainly coastal So Cal snakes, some desert Cal kings, some mixed desert-coastal. Seems at my house the desert Cals were more likely to refuse food in Winter. The coastal Cals seem to not care much about time of year.

>>
>>Cheers
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Mark

Thanks guys. Very interesting stuff. Anyone else who hasn't seen this happen in their collection want to chime in?

>>Thanks guys. Very interesting stuff. Anyone else who hasn't seen this happen in their collection want to chime in?

All I can add to this interesting information is that I live in South Texas on the coast....We have high temps and high humidity relative to the rest of the nation (except Gulf Coast Florida).......

Almost never have I had a snake that chose to go off feed for the winter. I have to force this upon my snakes......With the way I keep my animals.....

I am referring mainly to Mexicana and Montane kings.....

The only snakes that have chosen to go off feed were some (not all) males out of brumation, but this year I brought my males up a few weeks earlier and they fed great until they got a piece.....LOL
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...

John,
Do your snakes have access to natural light cycles? If so, how much variation is there in day length from summer to winter where you are?

I am very curious to figure out if this is a lighting thing, a genetics thing, or a climate thing. I find it hard to believe that snakes in a climate controlled building, can tell the temps outside. Humidity and barometric pressure, yes, but temps I am skeptical.

>>John,
>>Do your snakes have access to natural light cycles? If so, how much variation is there in day length from summer to winter where you are?
>>
>>I am very curious to figure out if this is a lighting thing, a genetics thing, or a climate thing. I find it hard to believe that snakes in a climate controlled building, can tell the temps outside. Humidity and barometric pressure, yes, but temps I am skeptical.

I do not have a "natural" light cycle but the lights in my herp room are all on timers set with the outside daylight/nighttime hours in my area..........
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...

BTW...most of my animals are on the same lighting "clock" as I am since I am close to their Mexican habitat.......
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...